Page 10 of The Puppet Master
My hand trembling (notan easy thing to fake), I pull out a third card and slap it on the bar. Sherry says nothing as she takes it and scurries away. I’m visibly agitated now, my neck cracking, my fingers drumming the tabletop.
When Kid laughs into his arm, I spin toward him, my eyes wide with a challenge I know he’ll accept. Because I’m the nerdyguy making a fool out of himself, and he’s the guy who will never fill his father’s shoes.
People like him will always need people like me (or at least like my character) to ease the strain in their neck from always looking up. It’s nice to look down every once in a while.
“Do you have something you’d like to say?”
He holds up his hands and doesn’t bother to hide his smirk.
“You think I’m broke?”
“I think your three declined cards think you’re broke.” He points at Sherry who hovers a few feet away, the rejected plastic clutched in her hands. Her face looks permanently twisted in remorse.
“Fuck you, asshole.” I yank my phone off the table and pull up my last screenshot. It’s a photo of an account with a hundred grand in it. “Here, look.” I jab the phone in his face. He blinks to focus his blurry vision on the photo.
“I couldbuyyou,” I sneer.
He cackles as he shoves my phone away. “Is this a joke?”
“Do I look like I’m joking? I told you. I’m the owner of fucking StellarVista. If you can find one asshole in here with more money in their bank account, I’ll buyeveryone’sdrinks.”
“Oh really?” His brows shoot up. It’s too easy.
I check the time on my phone. Three minutes.
He shrugs, a big shit-eating grin stretching his lips. “Okay then.” He pulls out his phone to bring up his bank information. I wonder if he’d do this sober.
“Here.” Drunk thumbs jab at the screen before he shoves the phone in my face. He looks at an older couple—happily married for seventeen years, I like to imagine—sitting at a table a few feet away. “I wouldn’t get too excited,” the kid tells them. “The dude can’t even pay his own tab, let alone yours.”
I snatch his phone while he’s busy gloating and hunch over while gluing my narrowed eyes to the screen. “What the fuck?”
I shake my head while clicking to find his account number. Thirteen digits. It’ll only take twenty seconds to memorize them.
“You spoiled little shit,” I mutter. “What are you, twelve? How did you get half a mill?”
He tries to take the phone, but I simply twist away. “You don’t need to announce it to the room,” he grinds. Finally, his brain twitches to life.
Once the numbers are firmly in my mind, I click back to the account balance. I slide from the stool and toss him his cell. “I stand corrected.”
Turning to Sherry, I push the book across the bar to her and frown. “I’m gonna run out to my car real quick. Will you watch this for me?”
Her glossy lips part, then freeze. She lifts her shoulders almost imperceptively and flips her hands in a noncommittal, shrug-like gesture. She’d have to be out of her mind to believe I’m coming back—and as we’ve already established, she’s smart.
I snatch the rejected, stolen credit cards off the table and leave.
On my way out, I lower my head in mock embarrassment. Toss my hand in a little wave. “Sorry about the language.”
Outside, I dump the credit cards in a bin, along with the glasses. Yanking my shirt from my pants, I lock eyes with a mom carrying a screeching toddler from the hotel. She dips her head immediately, her face bright red. She’s so worked up, she doesn’t notice when the little guy snatches sunglasses from her open purse and chucks them to the ground. Her wallet is next, flopping onto the pavement as she hurries away.
I jog to the wallet and pick it up, but the woman is already at her car. Which is just as well because we’re cutting it close. I check the time just as Wilcox, my ‘business’ partner for the last year, pulls up to the curb. If I’d taken one more minute, we’d be late.
After climbing into his black Impala, I open up the wallet.
Iris Parkins. My eyes scan the address while Wilcox pulls away.
“What the fuck, Sawyer?” he growls. “We could’ve been late.”
“Could’ve been.”
